Cliff Hanger
Cliff Hanger is a character who appeared in Between The Lions. He is an explorer who wears a backpack and an adventurer's outfit. He reads his book to learn about new things. In The Series In Between The Lions, Cliff Hanger appears in The Adventures Of Cliff Hanger, an animated storybook series that occurs halfway through each episode. In The Adventures Of Cliff Hanger, Cliff Hanger is stranded on a tree branch attached to a cliff hundreds of feet below the ground. Each segment begins and usually ends with a theme song sung by a formally dressed group of singers that flies by in a helicopter, singing "Cliff Hanger, hanging from a cliff! And that's why he's called Cliff Hanger!" Cliff attempts to attract their attention to his predicament by calling out "Excuse me! Excuse me!", but to no avail. Then, the branch breaks apart, which nearly causes Cliff to fall to his death. He then says his catchphrase: "Can't... hold... on... much... longer!" Each episode presents Cliff with a preposterous situation of some kind, which he attempts to use to his advantage by reaching into his backpack, pulling out what he calls his "trusty survival manual", and following the instructions provided there. The instructions, though often highly unorthodox, usually prove successful, and Cliff briefly escapes from the cliff. But, inevitably, another highly unlikely incident occurs that leaves Cliff back where he started, hanging onto his branch once again. The cartoon then ends when the skies gets darker with Cliff's baleful catchphrase again: "Can't... hold... on... much... longer!" Similar to cartoons such as Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, these cartoon clips follow the same storyline; although Cliff never gives up on trying to get off the cliff, he never succeeds. In one episode, he apparently succeeds at drawing their attention, and they rescue him, but it turns out he is simply dreaming. He once got off the cliff when he jumped on a whale's blowhole and washed up on a beach in "The Last Cliff Hanger" and Lionel is upset about the last book, but Cliff got bored and, through a series of bizarre events (thanks to the writer, Livingston Dangerously), got himself back onto it. In three episodes Cliff Hanger and the Solid Oil Lamp, Cliff Hanger Meets the Sleeping Gypsy, and Cliff Hanger and the Sheep on a Ship, Cliff Hanger imagines he is in a restaurant eating steak, he is in a bathtub and a starstruck door. In another episode, Lionel's friend Lenny, a lizard, introduces a similarly styled series of books called Justin Time, about a stereotypical explorer named Justin Time who relaxes in a hammock until an absurd scenario like those of Cliff Hanger occurs, forcing him to intervene to restore the calm, boasting, "Couldn't be more comfortable." He too used a version of the Survival Manual, called a Safety Manual, which is from his Survival Kit, a version of Cliff Hanger's backpack and the same formally dressed chorus, riding in the back of a Pickup truck introduces him at the beginning of the story, Singing "Justin Time, he's always saved just in time! And that is why he is called Justin Time!" Then Justin rudely tells the singers "Go away!" Ironically, Lionel disliked this series. Only one Justin Time segment was ever shown as it only appeared in one episode. In the series, the character Lionel is a fan of Cliff Hanger books, which his sister Leona thinks are pointless. Category:Between The Lions Characters Category:Characters Voiced By Alan Category:Explorers Category:Adventurers Category:Males Category:Male Characters Category:Male Category:PBS Kids Characters